Mahamane Ousmane

Mahamane Ousmane (20 January 1948-) was President of Niger from 16 April 1993 to 27 January 1996, succeeding Ali Saibou and preceding Ibrahim Bare Mainassara.

Biography
Mahamane Ousmane was born on 20 January 1948 in Zinder, Niger, French West Africa to a family of Sunni Muslim Hausa. Ousmane was from the Democratic and Social Convention party (part of the Alliance of Forces of Change alliance), and on 16 April 1993 he was elected as President of Niger with 54.42% of the vote. He chose Mahamadou Issoufou as his Vice-President, but he enacted laws that reduced the power of that post, leading to Issoufou's resignation. The withdrawal of Issoufu and his Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) left his party without a majority in the government, and parliament passed a vote of no confidence against him. In 1996 Ibrahim Bare Mainassara ousted Ousmane in a coup, but in 1999 Mainassara was killed in a coup against him by the Nigerien Army and Ousmane served as President of the National Assembly of Niger from 1999 to 2009. From 2006 to 2011 he was Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament.